Saviour
by Kittenshift17
Summary: Rescued, moments from death, by a mysterious Death Eater, Hermione becomes obsessed with figuring out which of Voldemort's supporters risked his own demise just to save her life.
1. Part I

**A/N: Written for one my my absolute favourite fans, tumblr user for-witchcraft-and-wizardry, who always goes out of her way to remind me not to let the trolls get me down. She requested the following in an ask:**

**"**I wish you would write a fic where...Severus rescues Hermione (but in a way that no one recognise it was him and she works it out and confronts him)"

**And I've granted her wish. I hope. Love you, pretty lady. Thanks for having my back.**

**xx-Kitten.**

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**Savior**

_By Kittenshift17_

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**Part I**

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The streak of brilliant emerald magic-light whistled and crackled angrily, driving toward her heart and Hermione Granger opened her mouth in shock, her eyes widening and her wand jerking up, instinctively casting a shield charm that would do nothing to defend against the assault. This was it. She was going to die. An evilly smirking Death Eater stood at the other end of the impromptu duelling arena they'd created when their battle began amid the garden of the Burrow. Bill and Fleur's wedding would forever be ruined by Hermione's untimely death.

Vaguely, she was aware that she was moving, her body seeming sluggish as time slowed to a grind. Her life flashed before her eyes, and she knew this was it. She was done. She would die a virgin. The fourth casualty of a war that never should've started. Her body would crumple amid the rubble of the reception tent as the living fled for their lives. Her legs weren't moving fast enough, and she didn't have the presence of mind to disapparate out of harm's way – even if she did, she was probably too scared to dare it without splinching.

An evil laugh sounded from her opponent, and Hermione listened to it as though from under water, watching even as the wretched bastard turned away to engage in a duel with someone Hermione couldn't see. He didn't even respect her enough to witness her death, Hermione thought bitterly, lunging sideways, but knowing even as she twisted her ankle doing so, that it wouldn't be enough. She was done for. No more read-a-thons into the wee small hours. No more dreams of romance or her future. Like she'd erased herself from her parents' memories, this masked Death Eater would erase her from existence entirely, and Hermione felt an overwhelming sort of sorrow intermingled with acceptance at the thought. Perhaps this was her penance.

Just as she began to fall to the floor, her ankle twisting unnaturally and a cry of agony tearing from her throat, the spell still whizzing toward her, something black filled up her vision.

At first, Hermione thought that this was it. This was death. The blackness swallowed her entirely and the vicious sensation of immense pressure bearing down upon her body combined with the sensation of being terribly stretched through a tiny straw overtook her. She was certain this was death. This was the next adventure they'd all been promised.

And then something warm and hard was enshrouding her, and her ankle ached and screamed with torn tendons and snapping bones.

"Fuck!" a low, pained voice sounded from above her head.

That seemed an odd greeting for whatever fresh hell she'd found in this afterlife. And the body curled protectively around her own was new, too. It smelled slightly of stale sweat, and a muskiness that called to mind a mildew-riddled house, and beneath it the vicious tang that reminded her of a particularly unfriendly potion she'd brewed last year at school.

A scream filled the air and it took Hermione a moment to realize it was emitting from her own throat before she was shoved rather viciously onto a garden bench amid a quiet park. The cries and screams of battle were gone. The glow of party lights and spell-light had been replaced by a distant glow of muggle streetlamps.

And Hermione Granger was alive.

Her scream cut off abruptly when she jerked her gaze up to land upon a face that would haunt her nightmares. The Death Eater mask he wore protected his identity, flashing eyes barely visible through the snake-like slits cut in bleached bone hiding his face from her gaze. She recoiled sharply, her eyes wide and staring, her wand lifting to train on the wizard threateningly. He was taller than her, though not especially tall, and he was imposing in the long black Death Eater robes and drawn-up hood that marked his allegiance.

Before she could curse him, he squatted, one gloved hand seizing her knee, his wand clacking against her own as he used the tip of it to deflect her instinctive draw and aim hers away from him. Hermione shivered when he trailed his hand the length of her bared calf beneath the hem of her dress, heading south to cup her broken ankle. His wand still incapacitating hers, wandless magic sparkled at his fingertips – brilliant blue that lit up the dark park around them and made him appear all the deathlier for it – and Hermione felt the pain in her ankle begin to ease before it disappeared entirely.

And then he was gone, his hand leaving her skin, his wand held ready, but not threateningly, and he stepped away from her into the dark.

"Wait…" Hermione said, her eyes wide as she looked from her ankle and back to the Death Eater. "Who are you? You… saved me…"

He didn't answer her, just continued stepping back, never turning his back on her, but retreating just the same. Hermione rose to her feet, intent on following him and finding that her ankle was still tender under her full weight thanks to the heels she'd worn for the party.

"Don't go home," the Death Eater warned her gruffly as the shadows rushed forth the swallow him.

The resounding crack of his disapparation echoed across the park and Hermione stood there limply, staring into the blackness, tears streaming down her face, her mind adrift with how close she'd come to death, and the knowledge that a Death Eater – their enemy – had saved her from that fate.


	2. Part II

**A/N: *scampers in, out of breath and grinning***

***spots that you're distracted and tiptoes up right behind you***

***pokes the chapter into your cauldron***

***blows cold air across the back of you neck to freak you out***

***dashes away, cackling wickedly, before you can catch me***

**xx-Kitten.**

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**Saviour**

_By Kittenshift17_

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**Part II**

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More often than she'd like, Hermione thought about that night. In the months that followed, while she and her friends were on the run from the Ministry and the Death Eaters, Hermione wondered if her savior regretted his actions. Had he known who she was when he'd saved her? Had he been punished for doing so? Had he known that he was the only reason she was still there to ponder his fate, alongside her own, when she didn't even know his name?

She had nightmares about that night, sometimes.

The evil laughter of the Death Eater who'd fired that Killing Curse at her. The emerald glow of her doom, bearing down upon her. The wretched pain in her ankle as it twisted and broke while she tried to get away. The ankle still pained her, sometimes. In the cold of the winter, when they'd survived in a tent, it ached deep within the joint, never having been given the chance to fully heal when they had to keep moving, keep running, keep surviving.

She had nightmares about her savior, too. About the blandly decorated, bleached white skull-mask he'd worn. About those wretchedly snake-like slits that protected even his eyes from her inquisitive gaze. About the leather of the gloves he'd worn, and his unforgiving grip on her knee as he'd squatted at her feet in the middle of a Teddington park in London, surrounded by muggle buildings, and yet healing the broken ankle she'd earned in battle. It was nice leather. A soft, buttery sort of leather. The texture of it still haunted the skin of her knees, months and months later, as though she could still feel that heavy grip holding her still and just daring her to try and pull away from him.

His voice intrigued her the most, entirely because she couldn't place it. Hermione couldn't think of a single Death Eater who might belong to that voice. She had been torturing herself for months trying to figure out who it could've been.

Snape had been the first, obvious choice because he'd been a part of the Order. However, when she'd recalled that he'd murdered Professor Dumbledore in cold blood, and that he'd turned out to be a Death Eater through and though – not to mention that he hated her guts and had always disdained her – Hermione had dismissed the notion.

Her next most logical choice had been that it was Draco Malfoy who'd saved her. The quality leather of the gloves lent itself to the idea, but Hermione doubted the bigoted boy would've been invited to such a raid – Death Eater tattoo or not. Not to mention there was no way he was good enough to have healed her using wandless magic. That, and she was certain he was a bit taller and broader than her savior had been. Though, she supposed he was still growing, and she hadn't laid eyes on him since the end of sixth year when Professor Dumbledore had been killed and Draco had fled the school with Snape, Bellatrix, and the others.

Her list of suspects had only grown less likely and more ludicrous from there. She'd considered Thorfinn Rowle, who'd spent a good deal of his time at Hogwarts with her doing whatever he could to make her life miserable. But he was much taller and broader and more powerfully built than her savior, and also probably couldn't do wandless magic that wasn't explosions of fire - Fiendfyre or otherwise. She'd considered Antonin Dolohov, whom she had researched extensively after her run-in with him at the Department of Mysteries. He would certainly have had the skills for wandless magic – hell, when he'd cursed her the first time, it'd been wordless, if not wandless, and she'd still almost died. But again, she doubted he'd have any reason to save her that wasn't sinister, and he'd never have left her alone in London and warned her not to go home. If anything, he might've saved her for the sake of torturing her in private, but her savior hadn't done that.

Greyback would've bitten her. Bellatrix Lestrange would've decimated her, and Bellatrix's husband and brother-in-law surely would see no benefit in rescuing a teenage mudblood and yet leaving her alive and unharmed – healed, even. They'd more likely have been at the other end of the curse that haunted her nightmares.

No, the only logical options, really, were Professor Snape, and Draco Malfoy. And the list of reasons why neither of them could possibly have saved her were much too long to dismiss out of hand. She would have to investigate, Hermione supposed. She'd tried to simply let sleeping dogs lie. She'd tried to let it go. To take it for the shred of good-fortune it had been and nothing more. She'd tried to put it from her mind.

But she couldn't.

Every time she slept there it was again.

Emerald green, an evil laugh from a wretched creature, an engulfing blackness, a low and pained utterance of the word "fuck", and buttery leather gloves smoothing down her leg to mend her ankle. Every night she slept, and the scene played out again, determined to drive her spare. She couldn't let it go. She'd tried asking Harry, once, who he thought it might have been, but it'd been his day wearing the locket, and he hadn't taken well to mention of her life being saved by a Death Eater. He maintained that she'd been saved by a friend at the wedding – that someone on the Order had rescued her and she'd imagined it was a Death Eater. He'd even suggested that she'd been Confounded, or that she must've fallen and hit her head before dismissing the incident entirely.

She wished she could do the same.

She wished she could just forget it had ever happened. It had almost cost them their lives a few times since then when she aimed her wand at whatever Snatchers or Death Eaters caught up to them and she hesitated, lest it be her savior whose life she might be about to ruin.

"Hermione, run!" Harry's voice intruded on her dark thoughts where she lay sprawled on her cot inside their tent.

She was on her feet in a heartbeat, a wave of her wand dismantling the tent around them in seconds. Harry raced toward her, and Hermione's eyes widened when she saw that he was covered in blood.

Spells flew all around them as the tent disappeared, folding itself and jumping into the purple, beaded bag swinging from her wrist. She dove into the fray, firing ruthlessly at a Death Eater behind Harry when he tried to shoot her best friend in the back with a dark curse. He went down hard, and he didn't get back up, his fellows shouting obscenities.

"Hermione, run!" Harry commanded again, barreling toward her, his hand outstretched.

She knew what he wanted. He didn't think he was going to make it and _she_ was the one carrying the locket tonight. He wanted her to make a break for it, to get away, to go to their agreed upon rendezvous point even if it meant being separated.

"Harry, go!" Hermione yelled in reply, whipping her wand in a circle and taking a page out of Rowle's book as she set the forest ablaze.

It was a ruthless thing to do. Destructive. Foolish. It would harm the forest, its creatures, and whoever lived anywhere near here far more than it would their foes. But it illuminated all of them in the dark, and Hermione's blood ran cold at the sight of a vicious werewolf baring down on Harry as he ran. Hermione fired another curse, watching it collide with Greyback and send him sprawling to the forest floor. Viciously, she hoped he'd been knocked unconscious and that none of his fellows would collect him before disapparting. She hoped he would be left there to burn to death in the inferno she'd started.

"GO!" Harry shouted, turning to fire hex over hex at their enemies. "I'll find you. Run, Hermione. If they catch you…."

Hermione knew he didn't have to say it. She had the locket, so she was in more danger though she doubted the Death Eaters knew what it was. Worse, she was female. Harry might be roughed up, but Voldemort had given strict instructions to bring Harry to him alive should anyone ever capture him. There were no such orders for Hermione. There was only brutal, reprehensible men and women who disdained her blood and would defile her body long before they would end her life if they could get their hands on her.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted in reply, watching him fire several more spells before he seemed to realize they were being overrun. He didn't bother trying to close the remaining distance between the two of them. He simply trusted that she would run, and he disapparated with a violent crack.

Hermione got off one more spell, sending a Snatcher cartwheeling into the hungry flames engulfing the forest, his agonized screams and the roar of the inferno the last things she heard before she, too, Disapparated.

She knew the drill as she squeezed through space. Keep moving. Stop at least seven times before heading for the rendezvous point, lest they be followed. Hermione cracked through the locations she'd told herself over and over that she would leap to should this ever become a necessity.

Carnaby Street in London. The banks of Loch Lomond. Her Gradmother's house in Manchester.

Just as she was about to twist away again, pain surged through her shoulder and Hermione cried out, ceasing her wild twisting and fully materializing on the darkened street in Trafford Park near Spinner's End. She breathed heavily against the nausea of so many trips through time and space, bouncing across the continent like a watermelon on a trampoline, and tried to catch her breath.

She'd been cursed, she realized painfully when she felt warmth and wetness beneath her fingers as she reached up to clutch her shoulder. A Slicing Hex, she'd wager. Stumbling a little further into the street so that the only working street light on the block could illuminate the wound, Hermione cringed, wincing at the gleam of blood in the low light.

"Bugger," she muttered, frowning at the wound. "_Episky_."

The spell light flashed though she supposed she was being foolish, given that the sound of her apparation cracking might've drawn a muggle or two to their windows to investigate the noise. Then again, it was hardly a nice neighbourhood. Maybe they'd mind their business lest it be gunfire. The healing spell did little for the hex and Hermione growled under her breath. Glancing around quickly to make sure she was alone, she peeled open her jacket and yanked up her sleeve to inspect the wound.

Definitely a hex and it looked a bit like she'd partially splinched the wound as a result. They must've caught her with it as she was twisting away.

"Bugger," she swore a second time, poking at the bloodied flesh with her wand tip and muttering more healing spells, trying to think of ways to heal it that would be quick and efficient. She needed to be on her way.

Harry had been bleeding heavily before he'd left, and he would be bouncing through his own goose-chase locations before meeting her at their rendezvous point.

"Fuck," a low voice swore from somewhere behind her as Hermione was digging in her beaded bag for the Dittany.

Gods, for a moment she closed her eyes and wondered if this had all been a dream. It wouldn't be the first time her nightmare had been preluded by a desperate flight for their freedom. She knew that low voice, though she couldn't place its owner with a face or a name that wasn't a plain, bone-carved Death Eater mask.

She froze, her eyes opening when the tip of someone's wand suddenly dug into her throat and Hermione realized she was very much awake and far from alone.

"Don't even think about it," she warned quietly, her own wand coming up to driving the tip of her assailant's away. "I'm having a bad enough night that I will gladly end you right here, right now."

"Brave words for a scared little girl," a familiar voice drawled, and Hermione's eyes widened as she twisted quickly, abandoning her search for the Dittany to face her attacker. "Uh, uh. No turning around. What are you doing here, Granger?"

Hermione scowled.

"I could ask you the same thing," she said, though she still couldn't place that voice, though it seemed familiar not only as that of her savior, but from somewhere else, too.

"None of your business," he retorted.

"Likewise," Hermione replied, scowling and attempting to turn her head and get a look at him.

He wore his mask and robes, she noted with disappointment, still unable to put a face to the voice and the deeds he'd committed on her behalf.

"Still alive, then?" she asked quietly, trailing her eyes over him from head to foot under the glow of the streetlight, looking for clues about his identity. "I suppose no one else knows about your little savior act, then?"

He stiffened at her words, clearly displeased to have been recognized.

"I am clever enough to avoid detection for my mistakes," he answered, and her stomach flipped nervously at the thought that he might try and correct the mistake he'd made of saving her. "Why is it that you are always injured when I happen upon you like this?"

She could tell his eyes were on the bloodied wound she'd been trying to heal.

"Why are you always around when I get hurt?" she challenged in reply, unsure what to say, their wands crossed like cutlasses as she turned more fully until she was facing him at arm's length.

"Stupid girl," he hissed before batting aside her wand with a vicious swipe of his own.

He closed the distance between the two of them in two long strides and Hermione held perfectly still, nervous about what he might do, but predisposed to trusting him when he'd helped her in the past.

"Slicing Hex?" he guessed, as he examined the wound. "And a little splinching."

"Snatchers," Hermione shrugged.

"Are they dead?" he asked, surprising her when he put a hand on her waist to turn her a little more toward the streetlamp glow so he could more closely inspect the gashes on her shoulder.

"Some of them," Hermione admitted quietly.

"And Potter?" he asked.

"What's it to you?" Hermione asked, raising her eyes to his face and trying to figure out who this Death Eater was and why she felt she could stand in his company with him inside her personal space, but without fear.

There was a fluttering in her belly, and a rapid thrum of her heart in her chest, but she wasn't afraid.

"Did he escape as well?" her savior asked. "I don't see him. The two of you are supposed to be inseparable."

"There's more safety in splitting up and rendezvousing later when we're found," Hermione confessed.

"Not here, then," the savior muttered. "This needs dittany if you want to avoid infection in the exposed flesh."

"I know," Hermione nodded. "I have some."

She twisted a little, poking her wand tip into the top of her beaded bag and wordlessly summoning the bottle of dittany to her. When she had it, she was surprised that he took it from her quickly, uncorking it.

"Don't scream," he commanded in a low voice as his hands pulled at her clothes to reveal the mess of gashes upon her skin.

Hermione whimpered when the first drops of dittany hit the wound, blinding pain searing through her nerve endings. She gritted her teeth, desperate to obey the directive lest she draw unwanted attention to the two of them.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked between panting breaths when he paused in administering the dittany to use cleaning charms, ridding her clothes of blood so he could better see if there was any more damage.

"That's none of your concern," he said, not entirely without condescension.

"Did you follow me here?" Hermione pressed. "Were you among those in the forest?"

A contemptable snort escaped him, startling her.

"I'm a little further up the hierarchy than a lowly Snatcher," he sneered, looking positively disgusted at the very idea.  
"Some of us have better things to do than gallivanting through the woods in the middle of the night."

Hermione's eyes jerked up to his face and she could see the gleam of derision in his eyes by the glow of the streetlights. His mask looked deathly in the low light and the dangerous air about him in that moment sent an unpleasant chill spider-walking down her spine. The sharp point of his chin and the cruel twist of his mouth were visible beneath it tonight, Hermione noted idly despite her alarm and his admittance that he wasn't just some sniveling follower, but an active and probably respected Death Eater amid Voldemort's army.

"Still a minion of evil, though," she said without thinking and his lip curled back from his teeth in a cruel grimace of irritation at her dismissal of his status.

She didn't know what had made her say it when he was standing so close - when she was all but at his mercy, injured as she was. His response was to drip more dittany over her exposed and torn flesh, eliciting another whimper from her.

"And you're still a foolish, defiant little bitch," he replied evenly, though with more than a little heat and making her wonder if he really did know who she was when they weren't at odd in battle or standing in the dark, unlikely if temporary allies. "Better run along to fight Potter's war for him, hadn't you? He's much too stupid to manage it alone."

Despite his obvious fury with her, he corked the bottle of dittany and caught up her beaded bag, shoving the bottle back inside it without preamble

"Is that why you saved me at the wedding?" Hermione asked, frowning and unsure where her daring came from. "Secretly routing for Harry to win, are you?"

"Get out of my sight, witch," the Death Eater growled, curling his lip at her a second time and fingering his wand like he was thinking about hexing her for her cheek.

Hermione was sure it had to be the locket affecting her when she smirked at him.

"Don't worry," she teased quietly. "Your secret's safe with me."

He looked like he doubted that very much. Before he could say anything else to further tarnish the moment, Hermione bumped aside his wand and fisted her hands in the front of his robes. He resisted a little as she pulled him down and his mouth was hard when Hermione crashed her lips against his.

She must be losing her mind. Only in her silliest dreams had she ever done anything so reckless as to kiss him for saving her and yet here she was, stealing a soft kiss from his hard mouth like she deserved one. He stood there like he didn't know what to do when she moved her lips chastely over his, his mask bumping her nose when she leaned into him, strangely bold and determined to elicit some kind of reaction from him with her actions.

Only as she was beginning to pull away did his mouth relent beneath her, his lips softening and caressing her own as they moved in tandem. He didn't reach for her; didn't try to drag her in deeper; and he didn't deepen the chaste smooch into a toe-curling snog. But he did kiss her back.

Her skin was electrified with the sensations coursing through her and the reckless part of her mind wanted to push this further. But he was a Death Eater, even if he had saved her from a Killing Curse and had healed her wounds. They were opponents on a battlefield, and no matter the resounding cry from her body to let his touch sweep away all the hurt and bad feelings and loneliness inspired by months spent on the run with only a surly teenaged boy for company, Hermione knew this was wrong.

When she let him go and stepped back, breaking their soft kiss, he didn't try to stop her. His eyes glittered with suspicion behind his mask and he seemed at a loss for something to say. Knowing she needed to get going if she was going to rendezvous with Harry before he could have kittens – knowing her best friend probably needed healing if any of that blood on him had been his own – Hermione prepared to disapparate.

"Don't die, okay?" she asked of her Death Eater savior while he regarded her coolly, obviously suspicious of her actions.

"Mmmhmm," he hummed and the tone of it more than indicated that of the two of them, she was the one more likely to do that. He didn't say anything else and Hermione flashed him a quick grin in spite of the seriousness of it all before she twisted sharply and apparated away with a violent crack.


	3. Part III

**A/N: *Skips in, toting the biggest chapter she's written in months***

***Curtsies in appreciation of the reviews and love you're giving this fic***

***Remembers her laundry suddenly***

***scampers off to rescue it, flinging the chapter back at you, hoping you enjoy it***

**xx-Kitten.**

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**Saviour**

_By Kittenshift17_

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**Part III**

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She dreamed of naughty things that night. When Harry was healed and tucked into bed, the two of them taking a chance and using what little muggle money they had to spring for a dingy hotel room over a rundown pub in a seaside village, Hermione laid awake, her lips still tingling.

She had kissed him.

Her savior. Her Death Eater.

She had kissed him, and he hadn't pulled away, as though her muggle-tainted blood didn't disgust him. She had kissed him and after his surprise had worn off, he had kissed her back.

Gods, she could still feel the hand he'd put on her waist to guide her into the light to better see her wounds. She could still feel the electricity racing across her skin, making her face tingle and her lips feel swollen with the soft kiss he'd given her.

She didn't even know his name, but when she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of doing even naughtier things than smooching him in the dark. She dreamed of peeling away the bone-white mask that hid his identity from her view, and she dreamed of peeling away those Death Eater robes that so very effectively hid anything distinctive about his wardrobe that she might've noticed. She dreamed about peeling everything away until they were both naked and moving together, their bodies writhing and grinding against one another, moving in perfect harmony until everything else fell away.

She dreamed of him speaking to her, every word they'd traded playing through her head again, and Hermione wrenched awake, jolting upright when the familiar tone of voice called to mind a sneering, unpleasant face of a man who'd made her life difficult for six long years.

"Oh, god," Hermione muttered, blinking into the dark of the shared motel room and running a hand through her hair.

It couldn't be, could it?

No, she'd dismissed Snape as the man who'd saved her, counting off the of compelling arguments as to why he would never save her. Glancing sideways at Harry where he slept fitfully beside her in the bed, Hermione bit her lip and squeezed her thighs together, uncomfortably aware that her hot dream had left her body wildly aroused and entirely unsated.

God, had she just had a sexy dream about Profess Snape? Her mind was presenting her with evidence that the voice she'd heard tonight was one that had hissed through a dungeon classroom critiquing her Potions skills for six long years.

But he'd killed Dumbledore. He's betrayed the Order. He'd once said that her massively growing front teeth following Malfoy's hex had been indistinguishable from her usual dental structure. He'd made her cry. He'd torment her best friend into violence on multiple occasions. He was a Death Eater….

But then, her savior had been a Death Eater, no matter Harry's insistence to the contrary.

She had ruled out everyone she could think of that she knew was a Death Eater, right down to Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape. And if her subconscious was to be believed, either her mind had recognized his voice as belonging to Professor Snape, or she subconsciously wanted to shag her professor.

Dear Merlin, this was bad.

Shaking her head to herself, Hermione flopped back down on the bed, and pulled the covers over herself tightly. Either Snape had been the one to save her and heal her – to kiss her back, tonight when she'd stolen a smooch from his lips – or her subconscious mind was telling her that he was who she wanted it to be.

"But… I don't fancy him…" Hermione muttered into her pillow, trying to make sense of it all.

She'd never liked Professor Snape. He was unpleasant in both appearance and personality, and while she had grown to respect his teaching ability insofar as understanding his need to be strict to ensure bumbling teenagers didn't blow up cauldrons and lose fingers, or eyes, or noses, she didn't like him. He was cruel, biased, jaded, bitter, and mean. Worse, he was prejudiced against Gryffindors, and had spent their entire Hogwarts career making things for Harry, Ron and herself entirely too difficult.

She wouldn't say she despised him, like Harry did. But she certainly wasn't fond of him. Only Professors Umbridge and Trelawney ranked lower in her books than he did. His competence with the subject matter aside, he was unkind, unfair, and dismissive of his students. He was always growling at her for trying to help Neville, but never tried to help the boy himself, even though it was his job to do so. He always unfairly favored the Slytherins, and he _always_ found a way to goad Harry into a failing grade.

And yet, she'd just had a sex dream about him.

What was that about?

She could admit that having ruled it down to two Death Eaters most likely to be helping her, Snape was, perhaps, the better choice. Between him and Draco Malfoy, she at least knew that Snape wasn't likely to dismiss her out of hand over her blood status. He was a half-blood himself, if she had researched him correctly.

Of course, Malfoy would've been the more age-appropriate choice for her, given that Professor Snape had almost twenty years on her and had spent the past six years teaching her. Then again, Malfoy was a foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach who more than deserved to be slapped or punched whenever the opportunity presented itself. But was Snape really much better? Malfoy was obviously the better looking….

And what she was even thinking!? She was supposed to be in love with Ron. Merlin, she _had_ been in love with Ron, until the idiot had complained too much during their time on the run before he'd walked out on her and Harry without looking back. No matter the influence of the locket, Ron had proved that when it really mattered, he would let her down.

Hell, had it not been for her Death Eater savior the night of the wedding, she suspected the entire plan they had for Horcrux hunting would've died bloody with her corpse among the rubble, as Harry and Ron were both too volatile without her influence to have survived this long. The point was, she was supposed to be in love with her best friend. Before he'd walked out, they'd technically been dating.

And now she'd kissed an enemy.

There could be no doubt, after all, that being a Death Eater made him the enemy.

"Snape?" Hermione whispered, squeezing her eyes closed and trying to come to terms with the fact that she might very well have kissed her Potions professor tonight. Pulling the blankets over her head and groaning into her pillow, Hermione tried desperately to shut her mind off and just forget the whole thing.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

In the weeks that followed, the thought that she had kissed Snape plagued Hermione's mind more than she would've liked. The nightmares about almost dying the night of the wedding continued, as did the new memories of meeting him on that quiet street near Spinner's End.

She tormented herself for days over what he might've been doing there, and she'd near driven Harry mad when she began to wonder if he had somehow put some sort of tracking device or spell on her that had allowed him to appear in that very suburb at that very moment when she was apparating and hurt. She had further irritated her best friend when she'd quizzed him at length about any defining features that he might've noticed between the masks worn by the Death Eaters. After all, he had known the night in the graveyard which Death Eaters to name and shame for their article with Skeeter; therefor, surely, he must have paid enough attention to their masks to be able to determine who was who.

Of course, she reminded herself that if it really had been Snape that night after the wedding and the night she'd kissed her savior, Harry's knowledge of masks wouldn't help her anyway, because Professor Snape had been securely rooted to his post at Hogwarts at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Harry had lost his temper with her before she'd managed to figure out if there were any differences between the masks the various Death Eaters wore. She supposed it would make more sense for them all to be the same. Same mask, same robe, same gloves or boots, or anything else. With no defining way to tell each other apart other than voice, she supposed it made it easier to protect against one Death Eater turning on his fellows. If you, yourself, didn't know who else was behind the other masks, you couldn't turn over their name to the Aurors if you were caught and questioned. It was a clever system, really.

And Hermione had forced herself to stop thinking about it altogether when she had begun thinking in lines of how she might've tried to get away with such things if she were in charge. Comparing her own projected methods to those of Voldemort couldn't be healthy, and when that had happened, Hermione had taken off the locket and traded places with Harry, insisting that she needed to go for a walk to clear her head of the thoughts plaguing her.

Ron's return had done little to assuage the thoughts or dreams. He seemed to appreciate that she was furious with him for leaving, and that she didn't want to just jump back into whatever they'd had together before he'd run off. But the truth was that the one time she'd caved while Harry had been on watch and Ron had been funny and cute and charming enough to have her kiss him just a bit, she'd spent the length of the kiss and the remainder of the night instead thinking about the kiss she'd shared with Snape.

She was certain, by now, that it had been Snape.

Who else could it be? Malfoy would never be in Spinner's End, and Malfoy would never kiss her. Hell, from what she'd seen of him over the years, the blond wizard was much too cowardly to ever risk throwing himself in front of a Killing Curse to disapparate her to safety.

No, it had to have been Snape. The only thing she couldn't figure out was why? Why would Professor Snape have risked so much just to save her life? Certainly, she was clever. Hermione was humble, but it was a solid fact that she was the clever one. Certainly, that cleverness might be all that had stood between them and starvation or certain death on more than one occasion. But Professor Snape had killed Professor Dumbledore. If Harry was to be believed, Snape had chillingly and clinically murdered the man who had put so much trust in him. He'd killed him in cold blood and then fled the school with his fellow Death Eaters. If the stories on Fred and George's radio show were to be believed, he was tyrannically lording if over them all at Hogwarts, reveling in the position of power over the fellow teachers who despised him, and the students he had always loathed.

He was bitter, unkind, wretched and cruel.

And yet, he had tackled her out of the path of certain death. He had, admittedly, transported her to a location that while safe enough for a witch, was hardly all that safe in the late evening. He had abandoned her there after healing her ankle, and his dire warning about not going home had indicated that the Death Eaters didn't know she'd sent her parents away, yet, but also suggested that he meant to protect her from further danger.

Why?

She was far from his favorite student. He was supposed to be working for Lord Voldemort. As such, surely, it would've made the most sense to let her die there in that tent the night of the wedding. Her death would've crippled Harry's hunt for the horcruxes both through the removal of her cleverness from his arsenal, but also through the grief it undoubtedly would've caused her friends.

So why had he saved her?

Why had he healed her in Spinner's End? Why had he insisted on applying the dittany to her wounds, himself? Why had he touched her and conversed with her? Why had he kissed her back? And he _had_ done so. Hermione had no doubt that she had shocked him by kissing him in the first place – and she was mortified to imagine what he must think of her – but he _had_ kissed her back before she could pull away.

Hermione wanted answers, and some days it was only the threat of the unknown regarding what might happen that stopped her from storming the school and invading his office to demand answers. She wanted to confront him. She wanted to confirm that it had been him that night, and that he had saved her life. She wanted to know why, and maybe to express her gratitude over not dying an untimely death.

"Hermione?" Harry's voice intruded on her thoughts as she sat up pouring over a tome while Ron slept, and Harry kept watch.

"Mmm?" Hermione hummed, lifting her head and peering at her best friend where he sat in the doorway, looking out over the small lake they'd setup their tent beside.

"Can I ask you something?" Harry asked, beckoning her closer and darting a look at Ron as though he didn't want Ron to overhear him.

Hermione frowned, marking her page and closing her book before joining in him the doorway.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked softly, wondering what might be bothering her best friend now.

"Are you still convinced a Death Eater saved your life the night of the wedding?" Harry asked her.

Hermione hadn't told him about the second encounter when they'd been separated. She didn't think it would've been worth the fight, after Harry had reacted so poorly the first time she'd told him about her savior.

"Yes," Hermione said quietly.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Why am I convinced?" She clarified. "Or why did he do it?"

"Both?" Harry shrugged, frowning heavily.

Hermione eyed him curiously. They'd destroyed the locket a few weeks ago, and Harry had been lighter, in a better mood ever since.

"I'm convinced it happened because it did," Hermione told him, shrugging her shoulders. "A Death Eater shot a Killing Curse at me in that tent, and when I tried to move aside, I fell off my high heels and broke my ankle. I was awkwardly falling, the spell still whizzing at me, and that git who shot it didn't even stick around to watch it kill me. He got distracted by someone else wanting to duel. Before it could hit me, someone tackled me and disapparated both of us to a park in London. He helped me to a park bench, and he healed my ankle before warning me not to go home."

"A Death Eater dove into the path of a Killing Curse to save your life?" Harry asked skeptically.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "I know it sounds barmy, and wildly out of character for any Death Eater we know, but it's what happened. I didn't imagine it. It wasn't one of the Order. It was a Death Eater. With the bone-mask and the heavy robes. The whole kit and caboodle."

"But why would a Death Eater save you?" Harry frowned. "Not that I'm ungrateful that you're alive, but…. Why?"

"I've been asking myself that for months, Harry," Hermione sighed. "I… think I have an answer."

"Oh?" Harry asked.

Hermione bit her lip, searching his face for a long moment before looking over her shoulder in Ron's direction.

"You're not going to like it," Hermione warned him.

"There's Death Eaters involved, saving you for unknown reasons, Hermione," Harry said dryly. "I already don't like it."

Hermione sighed, wondering if she should tell him about the second encounter; wondering if she should share her theory that it was Snape.

"Do you remember that night in the forest, before Ron came back, when the Snatchers and Greyback found us?" Hermione asked him quietly.

"How could I forget?" Harry asked bitterly, waving an indicative hand to the fresh scar on his jaw, and the mess on his chest beneath his shirt where Greyback had savaged him that night, just before they'd gotten away.

"We got separated," Hermione reminded him. "We had to get out of there, and we got separated when we started our goose-chase of apparation locations, you remember?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "It took a long time for you to come back. I was getting worried you'd been caught."

Hermione sighed again, nodding.

"One of my stops was on the street where my grandmother used to live before she died, near Spinner's End," Hermione told him. "I'd already stopped twice, and when I stumbled there, I realized one of the Snatchers had hit me with a Slicing Hex, and that in my haste, I'd splinched the wound as we fled."

"Merlin, Hermione! You never mentioned being hurt that night? I thought all the blood I saw on you was mine."

"While I was trying to get a better look at the gashes under the streetlight, my savior from the wedding showed up," Hermione said, holding up her hands to fend off his worry over wounds that had long since healed, even if she did have some unusual scars, now.

"What?" Harry gasped, his eyes widening. "Bloody hell! Why didn't you tell me? What happened? How did he find you? Was he one of the ones following us in the forest?"

Hermione waited as Harry continued to blurt out all the same questions that she'd asked herself, and asked of her Death Eater as the news sank in.

"Obviously, he didn't hurt you?" Harry concluded finally when she'd waited for him to finish and all the words ran out.

"He healed me. I had some dittany in my bag for the splinching, and he helped get the blood off my clothes. I don't know what he was doing there, but I know he didn't follow us from the forest. I asked him. You…. Erm…. Well, you won't like his answer."

"What?" Harry asked tightly.

"He said he's ranked higher than to be running after us in the woods in the middle of the night. I think he's inner circle. Actually, I'm ninety-five percent certain I know who he is, after speaking with him that night."

"Who?" Harry wanted to know.

Hermione sighed again, casting an extra muffling charm as she expected Harry would explode and wake Ron when she told him the truth.

"I think it was Profess Snape," she confessed quietly when Harry started to look impatient.

"WHAT!?" Harry yelled, jumping to his feet as though Snape might appear by virtue of saying his name. "SNAPE! Hermione, he's a murderer!"

Hermione waited while Harry ranted, working himself up into a rage in his fury over Snape and she felt all the guiltier for the fact that more than once since that night, she'd had sexy dreams about the man.

"You're not saying anything," Harry said finally when he was out of breath from shouting.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

"I knew you would react this way," she said. "And I'm not one hundred percent sure that it's him, but no one else makes sense. Based on build, likelihood to rescue me without ulterior motive, and the sound of his voice, I've deduced that it's most likely him."

"Why?" Harry demanded. "What does he want? What did he do to you? Gods, you're not under the Imperius curse, are you?"

Hermione held up her hands placatingly.

"I'm not, Harry," Hermione said. "And I don't know what he wanted. I've thought about it from every possible angle and I can't figure out why he would save me, unless it was pure instinct. He was our teacher, after all. It's been his jobs these past sixteen years to ensure the safety of his students, myself included. Maybe he saw that I was in peril and simply reacted?"

"Hermione, this is the same man who murdered Dumbledore in cold blood," Harry reminded her hotly.

"I know," Hermione said. "Believe me, I've tried to figure it out for months. Since I realized that it was most likely him, I've been agonizing over it, trying to understand why he would save me, or why he would heal me, or why he didn't drag me to the Dark Lord. And I honestly can't think of a reason that makes a lick of sense. Unless he's secretly still working for the Order, by all rights he should've let me die at the wedding, and failing that, shouldn't have healed me when he could kidnap me in Spinner's End."

"He killed Dumbledore!"

"I know," Hermione said, huffing in annoyance. "I know he did. Which is why it doesn't make sense."

"So…. Snape is the one who saved you. Snape? He's evil."

"I didn't say he wasn't," Hermione said.

"But… why would he save you? Why _wouldn't_ he kidnap you if he was solely on Vol-…"

"Don't say his name!" Hermione interrupted quickly before he could get them into trouble again.

"Right. Shit. Sorry," Harry apologized, running a hand through his messy hair in frustration. "It's just… If he was working for dick-nose, then… why would he spare you? You're Undesirable No. 2. He'd have been rewarded for your capture."

"I know," Hermione said. "I've thought of it all, Harry. Unless he's still secretly working for the Order, there is no logical reason he'd have saved me."

"He's not working for the Order. He killed Dumbledore," Harry insisted.

"Then why else would he spare me?" Hermione asked, appealing to him.

Harry's brow furrowed, before his jaw slackened and his face contorted into an expression of disgust.

"Blimey, what if he fancies you, Hermione?" Harry said.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Because I'm such an enticing catch?" she snorted. "I don't think after sixteen years of teaching he'd suddenly be lusting after a student, Harry. Least of all me. He hates me. You know he does. He thinks I'm a know-it-all."

"Yeah, but it's not like he's a catch, is it?" Harry said. "And you're brilliant. He'd be mad not to fancy you. And _what the hell_ am I saying? We don't want him to fancy you!"

"No, we don't," Hermione said, though the part of her that had been waking up needy and unsated after increasingly torrid dreams featuring the wizard in question was making her think maybe she wasn't as sure of that fact as she would like.

"But if he doesn't, then why did he save you?" Harry sighed.

"Yes, well, that's what I've been trying to figure out," Hermione shrugged her shoulders, sighing as well.

"He can't have been doing it for the Order," Harry argued.

"The alternative is that he wants to get into my knickers, Harry," Hermione said dryly. "No one wants to get into my knickers."

"Ron does," Harry pointed out. "And Krum does."

"You're not helping," Hermione said, frowning at him. "I don't believe that after so long spent teaching, he would ever view a student in a sexual manner. He despises his students, myself included."

"What if he doesn't?" Harry said. "Maybe when he gives you detention, he wants to get you alone."

"I don't think Professor Snape has personally given me a detention since fourth year, Harry," Hermione pointed out. "If he was trying to get anyone alone in detention based on issuing them for seemingly no reason, then it would suggest he fancies you, not me."

"Oh," Harry said, looking squeamish. "Er… right. Well, the other option is that he's working for the Order…. But he killed Dumbledore."

"He did," Hermione agreed. "But what if he did so on Dumbledore's orders?"

"What are you talking about?" Harry frowned at her.

"You and I both saw the state of that withered and blackened hand before he died, Harry," Hermione remind him. "Everything I've read suggests that a reaction like that is usually caused by the containment of a nasty curse within the limb. Dumbledore was brilliant, but by no means young and able to throw off the effects of age and deadly curses. It sounds completely mental, but what if Dumbledore knew he was dying? What if he knew Malfoy was a Death Eater and had been tasked with killing him? Snape's a spy, he'd have told him that Malfoy was after him – he'd have had to, to prevent Malfoy being expelled after what he did to you on the train and to Katie in Hogsmeade. Maybe he didn't want to put a murder on Malfoy's conscious if he couldn't go through with it. You said you caught Malfoy crying in Myrtle's bathroom that time when you dueled. He was pale and unwell seeming, all of last year. I don't believe he took the task willingly, and I think Professor Dumbledore knew Malfoy would fail.

"But if Professor Dumbledore was already cursed – and you said his hand was already withered and blackened during the summer – then he'd have known there was an expiry date on his curse containment, Harry. No, don't shake your head at me. Listen. You said that Draco couldn't do it that night, right? They were all gathered, and he chickened out, didn't he?"

Harry nodded, though he looked skeptical.

"You said Bellatrix was trying to goad Malfoy into it. You said that when Snape showed up on the scene, Professor Dumbledore begged him. "_Severus, please_," you told us he said. Correct?"

"Yeah, but he was delirious and begging for his life, Hermione."

"And what if he was begging for his dignity?" Hermione asked softly. "I've been analyzing all this for months, Harry. Throughout everything, no matter what happened, Dumbledore insisted that we needed to trust Professor Snape. He didn't ask us to like him, he didn't even insist that we respect him. He simply asked that we trust him. I don't doubt that Snape would face a lot of doubt and a lot of scrutiny from within the ranks of the Death Eaters. He's lived and worked alongside many among the Order for almost two decades. He escaped prison time thanks to Dumbledore insisting that he was on our side. What if Vol-… I mean, You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters doubted Professor Snape? What if Dumbledore knew he needed a way to cement in their minds that he was loyal to their cause, and not to the Order? If Professor Dumbledore _knew_ that he was dying – and we assume he knew, based on the state of that hand – don't you think he'd do whatever he could to make it worthwhile?"

"Worthwhile?" Harry demanded. "If that's true, he made Snape a murderer."

"He made himself a martyr," Hermione corrected him. "In dying as he did, at Snape's hand, three things are achieved. First, Malfoy is spared becoming a murderer. You and I both know that sniveling idiot well enough to know he's always been a coward and that when it boiled down to it, he couldn't have and wouldn't have killed anyone, least of all someone as powerful as the Headmaster. Second, dying at Snape's hand ensures that in the minds of the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who, Snape is on their side. He killed the leader of the resistance against their cause. He slayed the one man Riddle has always feared. Killing Dumbledore frames him as a hero, as far as they're concerned. And finally, Professor Dumbledore was old. His hand was shriveled – possibly more of his body than that, though we only saw his hand. If he was dying from a curse that would slowly turn his entire body into that wasted, discoloured, withered wreck like his hand had become, then he would've suffered, Harry. He'd have been suffering for quite some time, and so brilliant a man might've wasted away in a hospital bed, eventually losing the will to eat, to drink, to live at all, potentially whilst slowly losing motor function and control over his own body. So great a wizard as Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted to go out as a sick old man, soiling his sheets and drooling on himself."

"So, better to be murdered?"

"Better to sacrifice himself for a greater cause than his own life, and to spare himself that pain and embarrassment along the way," Hermione said sadly.

"You really think that's how it happened?" Harry asked. "You really think Snape might still be on our side?"

"Why else would he save me?"

"I still reckon his fancies you," Harry grumbled, though he didn't look much like he believed it.

"And I adore you for thinking anyone would risk their life and a painful, torturous death for the sake of fancying me, but logically that makes no sense," Hermione told him. "_If_ it was Snape who saved me, then I believe it's an indication that he _is_ still working for the Order, and that everything he has done was in service of Dumbledore's wishes."

"This is barmy," Harry sighed, running his hands through his hair and looking exhausted.

"I know," Hermione said. "It's been driving me batty for months. And I could be wrong. What's more, if I'm right, the last thing Professor Snape needs is any of us making it obvious that he's still on our side. You still need to hate him, Harry. You still need to despise him with every fiber of your being as though you believe that throughout all this, he betrayed the headmaster, killed him in cold blood, and fled like a coward with the others."

"Won't be too difficult for me, don't worry," Harry said dryly, and Hermione laughed.

They lapsed into silence after that, and Hermione was surprised when Harry sat back in his chair by the door where they stationed a couch while they kept watch. He pulled her down into the soft armchair beside him, tucking her into his side and wrapping his arm around her shoulders, surprising her even more when he tugged her in close and pressed a chapped kiss to the middle of her forehead.

"I don't know if I really believe it was him," Harry murmured into her hair. "But either way, I'm pleased you didn't die that night, Hermione. I couldn't have done this without you."

Hermione's eyes welled with tears and she burrowed her face against his shoulder, hugging him in return and grateful for the comfort and his friendship.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, about the second meeting," she apologized. "With the locket still in play, and with how angry it made you when I spoke about it, I thought it was best not to add that to your pile of worries."

Harry nodded.

"It's okay," he said quietly, forgiving her secrecy. "But I swear, if it turns out all this was just him being evil, but fancying you, I'm hexing him."

Hermione laughed.

"I think that if that's the case and I'm wrong about him acting nobly to save a teenager from becoming a murderer and protecting an old man from an undignified end, I might hex him, myself."

"I wish there was a way we could know," Harry said.

"Short of storming the castle and demanding answers, there's no way we can," Hermione said. "Believe me, I've been trying to figure out how to get to the truth for months."

"Well… we _could_ storm the castle and demand answers," Harry said.

"And get captured and dragged before You Know Who?" Hermione scoffed. "We don't even know for certain that it was Snape who saved me, in the first place. We could be wrong about all of it. He might just be evil, not have saved me, the works."

"There's no one else amongst them who'd save you. Not even Malfoy. You said it yourself. He's too much of a coward, and no one else makes sense."

"So, you think we should invade the castle and demand that Snape tell us what he's playing at?" Hermione asked, pulling back to peer into his face.

"Why not?" Harry asked. "Could rough him up if it's just that he fancies you."

"He doesn't fancy me," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Bet he does," Harry muttered under his breath.

"To what end?" Hermione wanted to know.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. "Rough him up so he knows not to mess with you, you know?"

"He's twenty years older than us, and can probably out-duel all three of us, Harry," Hermione reminded him dryly. "He's also a cranky, mean, unfriendly git. If we showed up in his office demanding to know if this was all a plot, and being accused of fancying a student, he'd give us a tongue-lashing and probably hand us over to You Know Who just for spite."

Harry snorted.

"Probably," he conceded. "I s'pose you're right. Knowing why he's done it won't change how we have to fight the rest of this war. Might give you some peace of mind, though. I'd hate to go into the end of everything thinking he was actually trying to be a hero if he's just a git and it was someone else who rescued you. Don't want to give him any credit if he hasn't earned it."

"Well, if we're wrong and we approach him, I think the war might come to a screeching halt when we're all killed," Hermione said.

Harry sighed, nodding his head.

"Fine," he muttered. "But I'm not going to be any nicer to him, saviour of my best friend or not."

Hermione laughed softly, nodding in agreement. When she fell asleep a short time later, she couldn't help thinking that despite all the reasons it was a bad idea, she really _would_ like to invade his office and demand answers, just the same.


	4. Part IV

**A/N: *Skitters into the room, wide-eyed***

***Raises eyebrows, wondering if you're all in quarantine***

***Hopes desperately that you're all feeling happy and well***

***Waves a chapter and leaves it in sterilized packaging on your pillow, being careful not to touch anyone***

***Scampers off to wash her hands. Again.***

**xx-Kitten**

* * *

**Savior**

_By Kittenshift17_

* * *

**Part IV**

* * *

"We're going in," Harry told Hermione seriously late in the evening three weeks later.

"To Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows at him seriously over the top of the book she was reading for the fifth time. At this stage she was sure she would kill a man for access to a library or a bookshop just so she would have something new to read to help pass the time while they hunted for Horcruxes.

Harry nodded.

"The Horcrux has to be there," Ron agreed.

"Harry, the most dangerous place you can currently go is Hogwarts," Hermione pointed out. "Look what happened when we stormed the Ministry. I know we've discussed the idea that the next Horcrux might be there, and that we could invade the Chamber of Secrets for Basilisk fangs to destroy the cup, but it's not that simple."

"When's anything ever been simple for us, Hermione?" Ron challenged, looking grim.

He seemed to have accepted that she wasn't interested in rekindling their relationship, and so they were back on friendly terms. Hermione was grateful for that. Ron could be incredibly childish, and she had feared that he might make more of a fuss, but he seemed to have come to terms with the fact that while she had forgiven him for abandoning them – mostly – she simply wasn't as interested in their romantic pursuits as she had been previously. Largely, that was due to the fact that she was crushing on whatever Death Eater had saved her life – and her suspicions were still on Snape, no matter how awkward and uncomfortable the idea of fancying him made her. Of course, she hadn't divulged that little fact to Ron or Harry, though she suspected Harry had his own ideas on the matter anyway. Ron had been gracious enough in accepting her gentle rebuffs when he'd broached the topic of them getting back together, and once she'd assured him that her feelings had nothing to do with Harry, he seemed resigned to the fact that she, at least, had moved on.

"Never," she sighed. "I'm just saying… Hogwarts is as much the place You-Know-Who calls home as you do, Harry. He's going to expect you to go there eventually. And you know that the place is overrun with Death Eaters. You've listened to Fred and George's radio as often as I have. You know that there are at least four Death Eaters inhabiting the castle right now, Snape and Malfoy included."

"Yeah, but we have the map, and the Invisibility cloak," Harry pointed out.

"We do," Hermione agreed. "But you and I both know the three of us don't fit under it very well anymore. The last time we all tried to hide under it, our ankles were on display because Ron's grown so tall."

She spared Ron a small smile when he grinned, pleased with his height.

"But we need to get in," Harry said.

"I agree," Hermione nodded. "But… and don't blow up at me before thinking about this… what if I go in alone?"

"What?" Ron said.

"No!" Harry exclaimed. "Absolutely not!"

"Harry," Hermione warned, holding her hand up, sensing his rising temper. "Just listen."

"It's too dangerous!" Ron protested.

"Listen!" Hermione snapped, closing her book and setting it down hard on the table. "I agree that we need to go in. There's no way around it. But we don't _all_ need to go. Now, I'm the smallest, so I fit best under the cloak, and I'm the one with the least to lose."

"Hermione," Harry began.

"It's true, Harry," Hermione said. "It can't be Ron. He's got too many family members in positions where the Death Eaters can get them. Ginny's in school. Fred and George have their shop. Percy and Bill and Arthur have their jobs at Gringotts and at the Ministry. Even Charlie is reachable in Romania on the dragon reserve. They've already attacked the Burrow more than once. It can't be Ron."

"But," Ron protested.

"Quiet," Hermione admonished him. "And it can't be you, Harry. If we're caught, you'll be taken straight to You-Know-Who and any chance we had left of thwarting this monster would die with you. It has to be me. My parents are beyond the Death Eater's reach. I have no other family. What's more, I'm the smallest, and forgive me, but the least hot-headed. I can be in and out, get the fangs, search for the Diadem, and get back here without being detected. I'm the least likely to be lured into doing something stupid, like picking a fight with Malfoy, or trying to rescue our friends, or telling Snape that he's a monster."

She looked imploringly at Harry. They hadn't mentioned to Ron that Hermione suspected it'd been Professor Snape who had saved her from the Killing Curse at the wedding, and they definitely hadn't mentioned that she'd run into him again at Cokeworth. They didn't have any hard evidence, but what they did have suggested as much. If her theory proved true, Hermione would potentially be safest even should she be found out by anyone within the castle and dragged before Snape.

"What if you're caught?" Harry asked her seriously.

"We have contingency plans for that," Hermione said. "And again, I'm the one with the least to lose, and thereby, the one with the best chance of escaping."

"Hermione, they'll kill you," Ron told her quietly. "The list of names Fred and George read out on the radio every day isn't a joke, you know? And more than half of those people who've been killed so far are purebloods. Blood Traitors. What do you think they're going to do to a muggleborn witch? Particularly one well known for being one of Harry's best friends. There's posters all over with your face on them claiming you to Undesirable No. 2. They'll torture you for everything you know, and then they'll kill you. Don't you get that? Worse, you're a girl, love. They'll use you for sport, before they put you out of your misery."

"I know that, Ron," Hermione said just as quietly. "I've always known that. From the beginning, when things started to look bleak and we came on this mission, I've known that if I'm ever caught, things won't end pleasantly for me. They won't end pleasantly for anyone. But that list of names of the people who've died? It's only going to get longer, Ron. The longer we delay and the longer it takes us to make You-Know-Who mortal, the longer that list is going to get. When you left last time, you were concerned about Ginny. About your brothers, and your Mum and Dad. We've already lost Moody and Sirius and Hedwig and Dobby. What if we delay too long and the next person we lose is Ginny? One of the twins? Percy, or Bill or your Dad. What if they Snatch your Mum when she's buying groceries, Ron? They won't be any more merciful to them than they will be to me."

"Which is why we should come with you," Harry told her. "We have to go in, but I think we've always been strongest together."

"We have," Hermione agreed. "When we had to go in there, wands blazing, and fight for our lives. But it doesn't have to be that way. I've studied that map as religiously as you, Harry. I know all the secret corridors, and the little nooks where I can hide from anyone who happens along. I'm going in alone, and that's final!"

"But Hermione," Ron protested weakly.

"No," Hermione said, holding her hand up to stop any further arguments. "It's settled. I'm going by myself. The two of you can wait here, or somewhere nearby that's safe. I'll get in, get what we need, and get out. I'll run through my wild-goose-chase apparation stops on the way back and meet you back here to make sure I'm not followed. First thing tomorrow, I'll leave."

"Hermione," Harry protested.

"Harry, it's done," Hermione said softly, reaching out and patting his hand comfortingly. "I'll be fine. You know I will. I'll take the cloak and the Map, and you'll have to brush me up on some Parseltongue so that I can get into the chamber from the girl's bathroom, but it'll be fine. I'll see if I can convince the House Elves to give us some food too. Our stores are getting low. No one will even know I'm there, and if I'm detected, I'll make a run for it. Everything will be fine. Now come on, you need to teach me how to say 'open' in parsletongue."

"This is a bad idea," Harry told her seriously, running a frustrated hand through his messy black hair. It still looked awful from the most recent haircut she'd given him, but it was growing out a bit, so it wasn't quite as bad as it had been.

"It's fine," Hermione smiled encouragingly, and Harry sighed and nodded in agreement before beginning to try and teach her how to speak parsletongue.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

At dawn, Hermione apparated directly into the Forbidden Forest on the grounds at Hogwarts. She had the Invisibility Cloak firmly pulled over her, pinned closed at front with a bit of nifty spellwork to ensure there was very little chance – even if she had to make a run for it – that it would fly open and allow anyone to spot her. She clutched the Marauder's Map tightly in one hand and held her wand in the other.

Looking up at castle on that bleak winter morning, Hermione shivered in her ratty robes. It'd been weeks since she'd managed a shower and what she wouldn't give to slip into one of the bathrooms inside the stone fortress just to wash off the feel of so long spent camping in the wilds. She was hungry, and tired, and she probably smelled bad – she'd stopped being able to smell herself or the boys weeks ago. She looked at the structure mournfully, sighing as she made her way through the trees, uncomfortably aware that a pall seemed to hang over the castle like the snow blanketing its grounds and high towers.

Even the castle mourned the loss the childish antics and the excitement of education, it seemed. It stood silent and stoic, unbroken, but clearly beaten down and battered. Whatever Snape was doing up there as Headmaster, it was clear that it was a not happy. Hermione felt a grim sense of sadness and determination settle upon her shoulders. This was not the Hogwarts she knew. This was not the castle she loved. That place was gone, just like the childhood of herself and all those living through this treacherous time. It had been replaced with fear, and worry, and a foreboding sense of doom that persisted no matter the efforts they each might make to shake off the melancholy.

This had to end.

They couldn't go on like this.

"Hello, old friend," Hermione murmured softly as she stepped out of the trees behind Hagrid's hut, brushing her fingers over the rough old stones, blackened though they were from the terrible fire Bellatrix had started when she and Snape, and the other Death Eaters had fled grounds following Professor Dumbledore's murder.

The magic imbued in the old stones seemed to reach out to her as she trailed her fingers over it, eager for the familiar touch of an old friend who'd long brought happiness and light to the hearth that laid within. What she wouldn't give to let herself in the back door of Hagrid's home just to allow the friendly half-giant to draw her into one of those painfully tight and warm hugs he so specialized in. How long had it been since she'd seen her old friend? What wouldn't she give to assure him that she, Harry and Ron were alright, if a little hungry, and tired, and weary of the fight that really had yet to start?

But she hadn't come there to reveal herself, even to those select few with whom she would entrust her life. She couldn't endanger him that way. She wouldn't let him put himself at risk, and she knew without trying that while the bolstering of hope would undoubtedly lift his spirits, Hagrid would be unable to refrain from giving the game away. He would be tortured for explanation for his good cheer in such trying times, and she couldn't let that happen. No, she had come here with a job to do, and she was going to do it, and be on her way without allowing anyone to come across her if she could help it.

Not even the allure of storming Professor Snape's office and demanding to know if he was the one responsible for saving her could distract her. She couldn't let it. They had too much to lose, and time was short. Passing the hut, Hermione made her way through the snow, being careful to wave her wand behind her as she walked to ensure that she wouldn't leave any footprints. It had snowed during night, and her shoes were already soaking through to numb her toes, but she had nothing else and it was better to leave nary a trace of her visit.

When she reached the castle, slowly making her way across the courtyard, an alarm began to scream and Hermione cringed, running for it quickly and dashing through the enormous oak front doors, planning to get lost in the corridors where detection spells couldn't give her away. She trotted across the Entrance Hall and took a left immediately down toward the kitchens and the Hufflepuff Common Rooms. No detection spells would illuminate her amid the hundreds of students likely still abed so early in the morning. It was a weekend, after all, and no classes were in session. She didn't imagine anyone would dare leave their dormitories if they didn't have to – not in times like these.

Of course, when the tread of many footsteps sounded, Hermione was grateful that being on the run had kept her fit. The senior Slytherin students - led by Malfoy, of course - stormed the corridors within minutes of the alarm beginning to sound, and Hermione was careful to tuck herself behind a tapestry just around the corner from the Hufflepuff common rooms to make sure she wouldn't be detected.

"What is it? Who set it off?" people were calling and shouting, and the vicious tones and anger radiating in their voices told Hermione everything she needed to know about the state of things inside the castle.

"Intruders!" someone else shouted. "Someone must've tripped the alarm. No student would be out of bed this early!"

"Find them!" Draco Malfoy's voice was low and stern as he spoke and Hermione knew then, without a doubt, that it hadn't been him who had saved her.

His tones were unmistakable, and it hadn't been his voice in her ear the night she'd been saved from certain death.

Snape then.

Hermione wasn't surprised.

"Draco?" Snape's voice came soon after, echoing down the corridor despite how sensually waspish it sounded.

"We're searching for the culprit, sir," Malfoy reported, clearly the sentinel on duty and in charge of the others given his Death Eater status. "No tracks lead to the castle, or away from it. It might've just been some hapless fool on their way to breakfast."

"It was tripped outside the front door," Snape informed them. "And it is not hard to vanish one's footprints. Scour the castle. Do not stop until the culprit is located."

"Yes, sir," Draco answered, and he barked orders at his fellow students, directing them down every corridor, ordering them to leave no stone unturned.

Hermione had already heard enough, and no amount of gratitude for having had her life saved would convince her to leave her hiding spot and confront Snape. Turning away from the tapestry she crouched behind, Hermione lit the tip of her wand to examine the Marauder's Map, watching those students who would've been her peers had she not dropped out to go on the run, fan out across the castle, searching in pairs; an organized unit.

She watched Snape's dot circle the lower levels and disappear into the dungeons, clearly convinced that there was someone in their midst who shouldn't be. Shaking her head, Hermione climbed the stairs of the secret corridor and ducked out on the second floor when she saw that Snape had slipped into the corridor behind her, evidently aware of the secret passage and suspecting the invader to know of it too. At the other end, Hermione almost collided with Professor Sprout as she bustled down the corridor with her wand out. If it weren't for the fact that she had silenced her shoes so that she wouldn't make a sound as she walked, she was sure the Professor would've found her, and everything would've gone straight to hell in a handbasket. She doubted Professor Sprout would sell her out to the Death Eaters, but she also didn't want to run the risk. Flattening herself against the wall, Hermione covered her mouth with her wand hand to stifle her slightly labored breathing.

"Show yourself!" Snape growled, stepping out from behind the portrait that hid the secret corridor.

"Eeek!" Professor Sprout squeaked, jumping in surprise and turning toward Snape quickly.

"Pomona?" Snape asked suspiciously, his wand lowering a little and his posture straightening from a dueling stance to something standoffish and slightly annoyed.

"Oh, Severus, you gave me such a fright!" the elder witch panted, clutching and hand to her ample bosom to still her evidently racing.

"Did you take the passage-way just now?" he asked suspiciously.

"Of course not," Professor Sprout said. "I am doing my duty and patrolling the full length of the second floor, as I was charged with doing. You may recall?"

Hermione had never heard the head of Hufflepuff ever sound quite so waspish and she watched Snape's mouth draw into a hard line, his expression blanking into one of cool annoyance and nothing more.

"Indeed," Snape hissed. "Do continue, then."

He waved the Herbology professor away dismissively and it became clear to Hermione that though they had to continue working with the man, the other teachers evidently weren't fond of him. And why would they be? They believed he'd murdered Professor Dumbledore in cold blood. They likely believed that Professor Snape had acted callously, and that he had betrayed the trust shown to him for decades by the Headmaster, simply for the sake of taking his job and proving himself as a devout and loyal sycophant.

Carefully, Hermione inched her way down the corridor away from him. She wouldn't put it past him to be able to smell her as she moved, ripe as she happened to be. Cleansing charms only went so far, and the old English way of bathing with a bowl of warm water and a cloth had been used one too many times since her last, proper shower. A nose like Professor Snape's, fine-tuned for the faintest changes in the scent of a potion under his care, would sure be able to pick up the scent of an unwashed witch. Her only hope was to edge along with Professor Sprout in the hopes that the woman's penchant for smelling of soil and potting mix, and occasionally manure from her avid gardening, might save her.

Snape glared after Professor Sprout the entire way, and Hermione had to be careful to move slowly. No matter the use of the cloak, and the silencing of her shoes, she could easily slip up before somebody so attuned as Professor Snape.

"If you locate an intruder, I want them brought straight to me, Pomona," Snape said just before she could round the corner.

"Of course, Headmaster," Professor Sprout said, but Hermione could see the woman's face and so she saw the way she silently mocked the man behind her.

Hermione had to stifle the urge to laugh, and once she'd rounded the corner, Hermione turned on her heels and ran down the corridor as fast as she could away from both Snape and Sprout. She kept running, ducking into nooks to keep an eye on the map, before running some more. She needed to get to the room of hidden things, and she needed to get to the Chamber of Secrets, but unfortunately, with so many prefects and teachers and wannabe Death Eaters patrolling the corridors searching for her, she was having little luck.

Worse, Myrtle was evidently holed up in her bathroom, and she was making quite a racket today. She'd never liked Hermione, and she would undoubtedly sell her out the minute she showed herself. Maybe she could be silent and stealthy and whisper the word to activate the long slide down into the Chamber. She didn't really have a choice. Myrtle had been known to mope for days and her moaning and crying might help stifle the sound of the entrance appearing out of the stonework.

Hissing the word in Parsletongue that Harry had taught her, Hermione watched the bathroom begin to reconstruct.

"Who's there?" Myrtle demanded sharply, appearing out of her usual cubicle and glaring around idly.

Hermione stayed silent.

"What's this?" Myrtle asked. "Someone wants to play games, do they? You think it's funny to come in here and open that… that… stupid thing?"

Again, Hermione stayed quiet until the bathroom stopped moving. Peering down into the abyss, Hermione gulped. Merlin, she'd never liked heights.

"Here goes," she whispered to herself, her stomach turning.

Folding up the map and tucking it away in her pocket, Hermione stuck her wand between her teeth, squeezed her eyes closed, and jumped. A scream of pure terror wrenched from her chest as she plummeted down and down and down before crashing into the curves in the pipes, and then she began to skid. Even as a girl, she'd never been fond of slides, and this one had to be the worst. She couldn't see a thing, and for all she knew there might be a hoard of Basilisks at the bottom. There was no guarantee that the one Harry had slain was the only monster guarding Slytherin's secret cavern, after all. What if it'd been female, and it'd laid a batch of eggs somewhere?

She skidded and skidded all the way down and she really hoped her scream of fright had been mistaken for one of Myrtle's cries, otherwise surely, someone might follow her.

"Oomph!" Hermione grunted when, finally, the slide spat her out at the bottom on top of a mound of bones. Piles of rat bones from countless lost pets and castle vermin littered the bottom of the chamber, and the entire place stank of dankness and damp and sewage.

"Disgusting," Hermione declared, rising to her feet and dusting off the cloak as best she could.

She used her wand to clean it in spots, and she made sure to affix it over herself once more, even down here. Knowing her luck, someone would've heard the chamber opening, or heard her scream, and it would be just her rotten fortune to have someone follow her. Probably Professor Snape. Wouldn't that be delightful, to see him again for the first time stinking of unwashed body, and now of sewage and old bones, too? There certainly wouldn't be any kissing on this encounter, in any case.

Hurrying through the Chamber once she was on her feet, Hermione was horrified by it all when, finally, she reached the cavern Harry and Ron had spoken of. The statue of Salazar Slytherin still bore the battle wounds of Harry's fight with the Basilisk, and there, lying where Harry had slain it, was the slowly decomposing corpse of the very beast that had petrified her and made her miss most of her second year here at Hogwarts.

Rats littered the decomposing body, gnawing on the rotting flesh, and the stench turned her stomach.

"So gross," Hermione muttered to herself, shaking her head and casting a Bubblehead Charm for herself so that she might breath unpolluted air.

Growing up with Ron and Scabbers, Hermione had no fear of rats, but she didn't particularly like them and when one crawled over her foot as she made her way around the snake and to its head, she squeaked indignantly.

"Just get the fangs and get out," she told herself. "Just get the fangs and get out."

Pulling a small dagger from her pocket, Hermione parted the folds of the cloak to better allow her hands to move, and with painstaking care to avoid accidentally cutting herself or impaling herself on any of the foot-long fangs inside the snake's maw, Hermione began the slow process of digging each fang from within the jaw. Most were deep-set, and stubborn, and she was covered in stinking, rotted flesh and old blood, sweating and panting heavily as she removed fang after fang.

She took more than she thought they would need. There weren't that many Horcruxes left, after all, but she took them just the same. What they didn't use hunting the Horcruxes might one day be invaluable in potion making, should she happen to survive the war. When finally, she had enough tucked away inside a special bag in her purple beaded bag – the teeth would need to be washed, at the very least, to remove the decaying gum and flesh still attached to a few of the more stubborn fangs – Hermione sighed and rose to her feet once more.

She sterilized the blade she'd used, flicking her wand over it, and then over her hands to better clean them off.

"Merlin, I'll never get this stink out," she muttered to herself.

"I wouldn't worry about that," a low and painfully familiar voice drawled from behind her and Hermione spun quickly.

Severus Snape stood at the end of the Chamber, his long robes marked with dust and filth from the slide down into this pit. His wand was drawn, clutched in his fist, though he didn't have it trained on her.

"I know you're there," he said, though Hermione knew he couldn't see her.

Moving quickly, she hurried away from the corpse, but the fall and the length of time since casting the charm meant that her Silencing spell had worn off and her footsteps echoed eerily within the chamber.

"Don't," Snape warned as she ran the length of the chamber just the same, zig zagging a little even though he couldn't see her, just on the off chance that he could duel by ear.

Hermione fought to hold her tongue.

"Stupefy!" he hissed from behind her and the spell whizzed by her ear, missing her by inches.

"Really?" Hermione demanded furiously.

"Did you imagine there would be no security in place?" Snape drawled, and Hermione could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

Narrowing her eyes, Hermione ducked behind a pillar and quickly cast another silence charm on her shoes. Unfortunately, in all their planning, Harry and Ron hadn't been able to offer ideas on how to get back out of the chamber now that she was inside it. When they'd gotten out with Ginny and Lockhart in tow, they'd been air-lifted by Fawkes the Phoenix. Hermione didn't imagine she would be so lucky, given that Professor Dumbledore's familiar had flown away upon his death.

"My patience is not infinite," Snape warned from behind her, and Hermione realized that he'd managed to sneak up on her because his shoes must be spelled silent, too. She didn't hear a sound, and only the relative proximity of his voice suggested he'd come closer.

Peering around the pillar, Hermione stifled a squeak to see he'd come within ten feet of her. Damn it, was his nose so good that even with the stench of sewage and a rotting snake corpse, he could still sniff her out? She needed to get out of here. She needed to find a way back into the castle. She still needed to raid the room of Hidden Things for the diadem horcrux. And after handling that corpse, she desperately needed a bath. If she took too long to return, she knew Harry and Ron would come in after her.

She'd made them promise to at least give her twenty-four hours, but already four hours had passed since she apparated into the forest and she didn't imagine the diadem would be easy to find. People had been looking for it for a thousand years, after all. Of course, none of them had thought to look in the room where everything is hidden right there at Hogwarts.

"How did you imagine you were going to get out after climbing all the way down into this pit?" Snape sneered, sounding amused. "You've no bird to fly you out this time, Potter."

It occurred to Hermione that Snape thought Harry was with her. It also occurred to her that, no, she didn't have a bird to fly her out… but she did have a broomstick!

Digging into the beaded bag swinging from her wrist, Hermione fished out the broomstick she'd been loath to bring with her. Harry had insisted on it, just in case.

"How do you plan to get out?" she asked of Snape before dashing around the far side of the pillar away from him and running across the cavern.

"There you are!" he sounded triumphant.

No amount of silencing charms could prevent the water on the floor from splashing beneath her footsteps.

"Bloody hell," Hermione hissed, diving behind the snake corpse again when he flung another stunning spell and something unfriendly and bright purple in her direction. "Sod it all, who saves a girl's life and is then this much of an imposition?"

Wrenching off the cloak hiding her from view – not daring to try and fly with it on, lest she lose it, Hermione glanced around wildly before spotting a small hole in the ceiling high above the chamber in the far corner where a lonely beam of winter sunshine dared penetrate the chamber's gloom. She'd have to make a break for it.

"Come out," Snape commanded quietly, sounding more amused that annoyed. "The jig is up, Potter."

Hermione rolled her eyes and worked the broomstick between her legs. She'd have to fly like mad, and evasively if she wanted to avoid his vicious hexes.

"I'm not Potter," Hermione declared before she kicked off from the ground behind the snake and zoomed in wild spirals that turned her stomach, heading for the opening.

"Stupefy!" Snape cried again, just barely missing her a second time and Hermione hissed in annoyance, forced to veer off course slightly. "Miss Granger?"

Hermione looked over her shoulder for the briefest moment to see that he'd stopped hexing and was staring in wide-eyed surprise to realize it was her, and that she was flying. She couldn't do more than meet his eyes before she had to wrench her gaze away once more and Hermione squealed when she directed the broom through the tiny hole in the ceiling, catching her shoulder and wrenching it violently, tearing her jumper on the rough-hewn rocks as she made her escape.

Too late, she remembered that Snape had been under the tutelage of Voldemort and had learned how to fly without a broom. Rocketing into the open sky, Hermione flew hard directly for one of the topmost towers where she knew she'd be able to make an escape back into the castle from the rooftop. A flapping sound had her looking back only once and Hermione's heart flipped furiously to see Snape flying behind her, though he couldn't keep up with the Firebolt she'd borrowed from Harry.

Skidding onto the roof, Hermione ran for it, stuffing the broomstick back into her bag as she dashed away, and yanking the cloak out instead. She flung it over herself just in time, because as she skidded around the next corner high on the seventh floor, she almost ran smack-bang into Malfoy and his goons all over again.

Plastering herself against the wall, and squeezing past Goyle, Hermione covered her mouth, stifling her panting.

"What is that _smell_?" Malfoy demanded, clearly horrified as he reached to cover his mouth. "Merlin, Crabbe, you need to get your stomach checked. That's vile!"

"It wasn't me!" Crabbe complained. "It was Goyle."

"I didn't," Goyle argued.

Hermione rolled her eyes, shuffling past them. While the three idiots argued, Snape came striding down the corridor in her wake and he stopped dead at the sight of the three students.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, and Hermione was beginning to think more and more that it had to have been him who had saved her because he looked alarmed at the idea that she might've run into the three young Death Eaters.

"Sir," Malfoy said, straightening his shoulders. "One of these idiots has… I'm sorry, sir. Has the intruder been caught?"

"Have you caught them?" Snape sneered in reply, and Hermione didn't stick around to hear anymore.

If Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle could smell her from under the cloak, then Snape undoubtedly could. She needed to bathe quickly, and maybe to burn the clothes she was wearing. Turning on her heels, Hermione ran for it once more, barreling down the hallway and trying to think of somewhere she might go where there would be a shower that no one would think to investigate. It would need to be somewhere private. Not one of the student bathrooms. Not with everyone on lockdown and searching for an invader. A teacher's bathroom, then. Of course. And unused office, maybe? The third floor where Fluffy had once been housed was still mostly unoccupied to this day. There were teacher's quarters there. She could shower there in secret, and then change her clothes. Her shoulder was aching too, and probably needed attention.

Yes. It would have to do. She'd have to try it.

Ducking behind a portrait of Jerome the Jaunty – who squawked in surprise to have been opened by an invisible force – Hermione took the secret passage down, down, down, into the bowels of the castle, knowing from experience that this passage let out at the back entrance to the library – the one Pince didn't like the students knowing about. From there, Hermione took a sharp left and slipped behind a statue of Valerie the Valiant, taking the short slide into the third floor corridors on the unused side.

The air was thick with dust there, and Hermione was careful to hide her footprints just as she had in the snow, refusing to leave marks in the dust that Snape might find and follow. She ran down the corridor's full length, annoyed that the torches all lit up as she did so. She could only hope Snape wouldn't think to look for her there, and that if he did, they would've gone out again by the time he arrived.

When she reached the end of the corridor, Hermione ducked into the last classroom, and dashed across it, hurrying up the stairs at the back of the room and into the teacher's office that led through to living quarters. Inside, she barricaded the door, warding it heavily and barring it against anyone coming in after her. Even if Snape didn't suspect that she was in there, it would take him a good long while to undo the spells she'd cast.

The thing about living on the run and being hounded by Snatchers and by Death Eaters, with access to highly potent magical textbooks focusing on protection and defense, was that she'd had a lot of time to practice and a lot of cause for using all myriad of hexes and wards to protect herself, Harry and Ron. Just as they had done when Scabior and the other Snatchers had come looking, the wards she cast would prevent Snape from seeing her, even if he did manage to get in.

"Alone, at last," Hermione muttered, flinging off the cloak and hurrying into the bathroom. She turned the taps on and let the way begin rushing through the pipes, knowing that such prolonged disuse might've left them dusty and dry. The only things she could count on was that they would still work because the castle was still operating.

While the water ran through the pipes – coming out brown and smelling foul at first before slowly beginning to clear – Hermione stripped out of her soiled clothes. She used cleaning charms on them before shrugging her shoulders and throwing them into the bottom of the shower. She would have to make the most of the running water while she had it. It'd been months since she'd been able to do laundry, after all. Camping in winter was not conducive to good hygiene, unfortunately. She casting a charm on the clothes under the spray of the shower, setting the magic to wash the garments with leftover shampoo before stepping under the warm stream herself and scouring her body of the stink from the chamber and the sweat from too long between baths.

Even knowing Snape knew she was in the castle, and knowing she had limited time, Hermione couldn't resist indulging in the hot water. While her clothes washed themselves by magic, Hermione took the time to shave her legs, and shave her pits, and to deep condition her hair as she hadn't done since before Bill and Fleur's wedding. The stink of the Basilisk took several rounds of scrubbing with her most strongly scented soap to budge from her skin and Hermione felt raw but refreshed when she finally stepped out of the shower and began to dry off.

Hermione paused when she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, horrified to see the toll the war had taken on her body these last long months. She was too skinny, she thought idly. Her ribs all showed through her skin, and her collarbones stuck out sharply. Her face was gaunt from hunger and there were dark circles under her eyes. She might not be carrying the locket Horcrux anymore after Harry and Ron had destroyed it, but the foul thing had taken its toll. The vicious, angry red lettering of the word "MUDBLOOD" where it'd been carved into her arm stood out sharply against her pale skin and Hermione turned it to investigate the wound.

It was terribly slow to heal, and Bill had informed her that when Ron had carried her to Shell Cottage, unconscious from the Cruciatus curse, that the dagger she'd been cut with had been cursed. Fortunately for her, Bill was a Curse Breaker by trade, and he'd recognized the old spell used on the blade that would otherwise have slowly devoured her flesh until there was nothing left. He had saved her life, Hermione knew, but he had told her that even he didn't know healing spells strong enough to force the wounds to heal any faster than time would allow. Some wounds, she had learned, had to heal on their own without the aid of magic.

The gashes on her arm were one such wound. The skin was healed over now – she no longer needed to bandage it to keep from bleeding all over everything she touched. But the skin was still raw and sensitive to touch, and it looked terrible. She suspected that if she survived the remainder of the war, she would carry the scars for the rest of her life. Being tortured with the Cruciatus curse had taken its toll as well, and Hermione could see the effects of the pain she'd endured, and the aftershocks and attacks she still suffered when her nightmares got the best of her. Fresh bruising and a graze on her shoulder from her flight out of the chamber rounded out the pathetic picture she made, and Hermione found herself hoping that she survived simply so that she might one day regain her tan and the womanly curves she'd been developing before she'd learned to live on the brink of starvation.

Toweling off her hair, Hermione wrapped a second towel around her body and padded back into the main living quarters to where she'd left her bag, levitating her freshly washed clothes with her. Once there, she flicked her wand to start a fire in the hearth, carrying enough firewood in her bag to feed into it so that she might warm the room while she dressed, and so that her clothes might dry without the aid of magic. They always felt better – less stiff – if they could dry naturally.

"Why are you here?" the low voice cut across her musing as she padded about the room and Hermione recoiled violently, shrieking in surprise and stumbling back into the bed at the sound.


End file.
